Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec "La Vache Enragee" iconic vintage poster by Toulouse-Lautrec 1896

TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, HENRI DE

(1864-1901)

"LA VACHE ENRAGÉE"
Wittrock P27B, Adhemar 197
Original color lithograph
Printed on buff wove paper, c. 1896
Bears artist stamp “TL” upper right, dated 96
Image size: 22 1/2” x 23 5/8”

Several examples are known where Lautrec drew on work by other artists whom he admired. In this poster there are clear references to Adolphe Willette's humorous themes and rococo style of illustration. Willette was the founder and illustrator of the short-lived monthly “La Vache Enragee”(the angry cow) edited by the cartoonist Adolphe Roedel. This colored poster of the same title was commissioned for the appearance of the magazine March 1896. As a reference to the wretched financial state of most artists, the term “manger de la vache enrage” (meaning roughly, “meaning not having enough to eat”) was adopted as the motto for the “Vachalcade”which was held on Montmarte annually from 1896. This was an artists' procession, with fanfares and allegories on fame and the muses; it also included a furious cow and a troupe of pretty girls as a satire on Europa with the bull. The event was organized by Roedel"(Adriani p.217) Toulouse-Lautrec took up lithography at a high point in its history, when technical advances in color printing and new possibilities for large scale led to a proliferation of posters as well as prints for the new bourgeois collector. In his short career, he created more than three hundred fifty prints and thirty posters, as well as lithographed theater programs and covers for books and sheet music, all of which brought his avant-garde visual language into a broad public arena. For technical expertise, he depended on master craftsmen to share their knowledge. Whether advertising a product, like the new paper form of confetti, or entertainers in a well-known can-can troupe, Toulouse-Lautrec's posters were noteworthy for their highly simplified and abstracted designs. Inspired by Japanese woodblock prints, the artist incorporated diagonal perspectives, abrupt cropping, patterns of vivid, flat color, and sinuous lines to achieve an immediacy and directness that went far beyond the illustrative charm of other poster makers of the day.